President Biden Recognizes the Armenian Genocide

I’ve covered three Presidents in a row who acquiesced to Turkish government propagandists and refused to call the Armenian genocide what it was: a genocide.

Good to see President Biden take this long overdue step. https://t.co/jOa5sQxM80

— Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) April 24, 2021

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 A statement today from President Biden:

Each year on this day, we remember the lives of all those who died in the Ottoman-era Armenian genocide and recommit ourselves to preventing such an atrocity from ever again occurring. Beginning on April 24, 1915, with the arrest of Armenian intellectuals and community leaders in Constantinople by Ottoman authorities, one and a half million Armenians were deported, massacred, or marched to their deaths in a campaign of extermination. We honor the victims of the Meds Yeghern so that the horrors of what happened are never lost to history. And we remember so that we remain ever-vigilant against the corrosive influence of hate in all its forms.
 
Of those who survived, most were forced to find new homes and new lives around the world, including in the United States. With strength and resilience, the Armenian people survived and rebuilt their community. Over the decades Armenian immigrants have enriched the United States in countless ways, but they have never forgotten the tragic history that brought so many of their ancestors to our shores. We honor their story. We see that pain. We affirm the history. We do this not to cast blame but to ensure that what happened is never repeated.
 
Today, as we mourn what was lost, let us also turn our eyes to the future—toward the world that we wish to build for our children. A world unstained by the daily evils of bigotry and intolerance, where human rights are respected, and where all people are able to pursue their lives in dignity and security. Let us renew our shared resolve to prevent future atrocities from occurring anywhere in the world. And let us pursue healing and reconciliation for all the people of the world. 
 
The American people honor all those Armenians who perished in the genocide that began 106 years ago today.

Turkey Outguns the Kurds in Lobbying, Too.

 Yue Stella Yu at Open Secrets:

The Turkish government has alone spent roughly $12.3 million hiring high-profile Washington lobbying firms ... to influence the U.S. government since 2017. Turkish government-linked entities, such as Halkbank, Turkish Exporters’ Assembly and Turkey-US Business Council, combined to spend another $4.3 million in U.S. lobbying. Together, Turkish interests have doled out more than 20 times what major pro-Kurdish groups in Turkey and Syria have collectively spent during the same period.

The U.S. Mission of the Syrian Democratic Council, the political arm of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, has spent just $112,000 on lobbying since 2018. 

McKinsey

At NYT, Walt Bogdanich and Michael Forsythe write about McKinsey & Company:

At a time when democracies and their basic values are increasingly under attack, the iconic American company has helped raise the stature of authoritarian and corrupt governments across the globe, sometimes in ways that counter American interests.

Its clients have included Saudi Arabia’s absolute monarchy, Turkey under the autocratic leadership of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and corruption-plagued governments in countries like South Africa.

In Ukraine, McKinsey and Paul Manafort ... were paid by the same oligarch to help burnish the image of a disgraced presidential candidate, Viktor F. Yanukovych, recasting him as a reformer.

Once in office, Mr. Yanukovych rebuffed the West, sided with Russia and fled the country, accused of stealing hundreds of millions of dollars. The events set off years of chaos in Ukraine and an international standoff with the Kremlin.

Inside Russia itself, McKinsey has worked with Kremlin-linked companies that have been placed under sanctions by Western governments — companies that the firm helped build up over the years and, in some cases, continues to advise.

It has consulted in many sectors of the Russian economy, including mining, manufacturing, oil and gas, banking, transportation and agriculture. A McKinsey official sat on the Russian government’s energy board. Former McKinsey consultants have gone to work in the Russian companies they once advised.

A Bad Year for Democracy

The US standing in the world in decline. 

The president is an inspiration to dictators.

Americans don't think life has gotten better.

Michael J. Abramowitz and Wendell L. Willkie II at Freedom House:

Democracy’s adversaries are on the march worldwide, exporting authoritarian misrule and spreading instability across national borders. But as free societies face their most serious global challenge since the end of the Cold War, the United States is abdicating its traditional leadership role, exacerbating the crisis.

This week Freedom House has published its annual survey on the state of global democracy, and the results make for grim reading. 2017 marked the 12th consecutive year in which democracy has declined around the world: Those countries experiencing setbacks in political rights and civil liberties far outnumber those showing improvements.

Many of the declines are occurring in pivotal countries. Venezuela, once a democracy, has become a collapsing military dictatorship. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has transformed Turkey from a promising majority-Muslim democracy into a tyranny where thousands of his real or imagined opponents have been imprisoned on political charges. Hungary and Poland, previously exemplars of successful post-Communist transition, have moved into the camp of illiberal states that treat the rule of law with disdain and view press freedom with suspicion. Thailand’s military further entrenched its role as the guiding political force during 2017. In Mexico, the rule of law has eroded due to corruption in places high and low.

In themselves, the setbacks to date are alarming, but not catastrophic. Most of the countries that embraced democracy during the past century remain democratic today. Polling consistently shows strong global support for democracy, and even those living in authoritarian settings — most recently in Iran — have made it clear that they want governments to deliver on core democratic values, such as open elections, press freedom, official accountability and equality before the law.

But the retreat of the United States from global leadership, coupled with the Trump administration’s weak and ambiguous commitment to democratic values at home, raises serious concerns about the near future. As democracy is undermined, the world inevitably becomes a more dangerous place.

In practice, President Trump has largely discarded the principles that formed the basis for American leadership over the previous seven decades. His animating slogan, America First, harks back to the United States’ dangerous flirtation with isolationism in the period leading up to World War II. While he has correctly invoked human rights to criticize a handful of countries such as Iran, Cuba and Venezuela, in general the president has showered his most lavish praise on noxious strongmen and autocrats. Trump continues to offer accolades to Russian President Vladimir Putin, a brutal dictator who represses dissent and seeks to disrupt democracy in the United States and Europe, and he commended President Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines on his anti-drug efforts, which have featured a campaign of extrajudicial killings.

Also concerning is the administration’s silence in the face of renewed repression in China. Any independent speech on sensitive issues is now subject to severe punishment. The Internet, which had begun to facilitate the development of an independent civil society, has been transformed into an instrument of state control. Beijing has indicated that it will continue to develop its system of repression by incorporating the latest innovations in surveillance technology and artificial intelligence. China has already shared its existing techniques with other regimes; we should assume that any new methods will also be available for export.

The Trump administration’s disdain for the standards of democratic government within the United States will further undermine American interests abroad. A U.S. government that violates its own ethical norms will have little success preaching the virtues of transparency to other countries. A president who rejects verifiable facts, zealously attacks the judiciary and media, and seems to condemn Muslims and other minorities simply because of their faith or ethnicity will have little credibility when pressing rival states to drop disinformation efforts and respect their own people’s rights.

There is, of course, serious controversy about the wisdom, justice and effectiveness of certain American foreign policy initiatives over the years. But since the end of World War II, the United States has been seen rightly as the world’s foremost defender of democracy. Some administrations were more idealistic in tone, and others more “realist.” Yet all post-World War II presidents recognized that, in the long term, the United States should be identified with the global cause of freedom. The Trump administration’s approach represents an abandonment of the bipartisan postwar consensus that the United States’ values and its national interests are both best served by dedication to this cause.

Democracy’s enemies are gaining strength as the U.S. government disengages from the struggle. It is far from clear how freedom-loving peoples around the world will face the new threat with democracy’s strongest champion sitting on the sidelines.

Obama, Reagan, and the Armenian Genocide

Linda Feldmann reports at The Christian Science Monitor:

As a presidential candidate in 2008, Barack Obama promised, if elected, to refer to the Turkish mass killing of Armenians that began in 1915 as genocide.

But on this anniversary, the 100th, President Obama has once again avoided the word. In a statement released Thursday night, he referred to the genocide only as “the first mass atrocity of the 20th century."

“Beginning in 1915, the Armenian people of the Ottoman Empire were deported, massacred, and marched to their deaths,” Obama said. “Their culture and heritage in their ancient homeland were erased. Amid horrific violence that saw suffering on all sides, one and a half million Armenians perished.”

The reason for Obama’s reticence: Turkey, and its role as a key ally in NATO and in the conflicts of the Middle East. Armenia, a nation of 3 million people in the Caucasus, pales in geostrategic importance.

President Reagan did use the word in a 1981 proclamation:

Like the genocide of the Armenians before it, and the genocide of the Cambodians which followed it—and like too many other such persecutions of too many other peoples—the lessons of the Holocaust must never be forgotten.

He did not do it again, however.  At a 1983 public event, he sidestepped:

 Q. Mr. President, my name is Keshishian from California. I would like to know if the American Government has a stand on the Turkish genocide of the Armenians of 1915.
The President. The genocide of

Q. The Armenians in 1915.

Ms. Small. The Turkish and Armenian genocide.

The President. Oh. I—the only official stand that I can tell you we have is one opposed to terrorism on both sides. And I can't help but believe that there's virtually no one alive today who was living in the era of that terrible trouble. And it seems to me we ought to be able to sit down now, an entirely new group of people who know only of that from reading of it, to sit down and work out our differences and bring peace at least to that segment of humanity.

In 1985, in response to a question from a Turkish newspaper, he not only declined to use the word, but actually opposed a congressional resolution on the genocide.

Q. Turkey, like the U.S., faces constant international terrorist attacks. Armenian terrorist groups claim responsibility for Turkish victims. However, Congress is about to vote on an Armenian resolution-referring to the so-called genocide in 1915. Do you approve congressional action on such a sensitive issue?

The President. I know this is a deeply emotional issue, and I sympathize with all those who suffered during the tragic events of 1915. I also profoundly regret that Turks and Armenians have so far not been able to resolve their differences. Nevertheless, there is no question regarding my opposition to terrorism. On those grounds alone, my administration opposes congressional action on the kind of resolution to which you refer. We are concerned such resolutions might inadvertently encourage or reward terrorist attacks on Turks and Turkish-Americans. We also oppose them because they could harm relations with an important ally.

I hope the Turkish people understand that in our form of government the Executive can only seek to persuade the Congress and does not control congressional actions. Therefore, these resolutions, if adopted, would only express an opinion of the Congress. They would not and could not change my policy toward Turkey or my commitment to the fight against international terrorism.